ID# 277:
"The control by law of hereditary blindness"
Date:
Circa 1928
Pages: (1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8)
Source:
American Philosophical Society, ERO, MSC77,SerX,Box3: Harry H. Laughlin

&quote;The control by law of hereditary blindness&quote;

The people do not understand us. We come together once a year to talk about the X and Y chromosomes and the people think we are students of [crossed out] some queer sort of algebra. Or else, someone stand up to relate the terrible inheritance, as we find for example in the Jukes family and winds up by saying: "Isn't it awful!" Then they look at each other sadly-and-adjourn. We do not try to do anything. As the old ladies of both sexes think the subject is not nice, therefore we must not talk about it. Therefore to my mind at least we should think not less of research and study but more of the practical application of what we have learned. By coaxing and preaching and lecturing and teaching and all to little or no avail. What we must do is to try the effect of Groper Legislation Now I appreciate that we cannot legislate the public into good morals But we have the right, and also it is our duty to make use of what we have learned about genetics for the sake of our fellow men and for the economy of our own packet. Fortunately there is good precedent for a law to control hereditary blindness by another law [illegible] Chapter 503 which is already established at least in the State of New York. This is Chapter 503 of the laws of 1917 and as finally modified, reads as follows: "I have not to my knowledge been infected with any venereal disease, or, if I have been so infected within five years, I have had laboratory test to show that I am now free of any such disease." Apparently no objection has been made to that legal provision. In like manner there should be no objection to a person who is free from any suspicions of liability to transmit blindness, to sign and swear to a statement about as follows: "I have not, and have not had, to the best of my knowledge and belief in either parent or grand parent, brother or sister who has or who has had any form of hereditary blindness."

Copyright 1999-2004: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; American Philosophical Society; Truman State University; Rockefeller Archive Center/Rockefeller University; University of Albany, State University of New York; National Park Service, Statue of Liberty National Monument; University College, London; International Center of Photography; Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem; and Special Collections, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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